IRC-Galleria

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE BEEN IN FINLAND TOO LONG, WHENÂ…Â…

1. You rummage through your plastic bag collection to see which ones you should keep to take to the store and which can be sacrificed to garbage

2. As you walk past the Parliament Building in Helsinki, and see the statue is titled "Svinhufvud" you no longer read it as "Swinehead"Â… instead you think "What a good Swedish name!"

3. When a stranger on the street smiles at you:
a. you assume he's drunk
b. he is insane
c. he's an American

4. You don't think twice about putting the wet dishes away in the cupboard to dry

5. A friend asks about your holiday plans and you answer, "Oh, I'm going to Europe!" meaning any other Western European country outside Scandinavia.

6. You no longer scrunch up or fold your paper money. You always put it in your wallet

7. You see a student take a front row seat and wonder "Who does he think he is!!??"

8. Silence is fun

9. The reason you take the ferry to Stockholm is
a. Duty free vodka
b. Duty free beer
c. To party hardÂ….no need to get off the boat in Stockholm, just turn around and do it again on the way back to Finland

10. Your coffee consumption exceeds 6 cups a day and coffee is too weak if there is less than 10 scoops per pot

11. You pass a grocery store and think "Wow, I had better go in an buy something!"

12. Your native language has seriously deteriorated, now you begin to "eat medicine", "open the television", "close the lights" ´, and tell someone "you needen't to!"
Expressions like "Don't panic" creep into your everyday language.

13. You associate pea soup with Thursdays

14. Your idea of unforgivable behaviour now includes walking across the street when the light is red and there is no WALK symbol, even though there are no cars in sight

15. Your notion of streetlife is reduced to the few teenagers hanging out in front of the railway station on Friday nights

16. Your bad mood becomes your good mood

17. Sundays no longer seem dull with all the stores closed, and begin to feel restful instead

18. "No comment" becomes a conversation strategy

19. You finally stop asking your class "Are there any questions?"

20. The fact that all of the "v's" and the "w's" are together in the phone directory seems right

21. Your old habit of being "Fashionably late" is no longer acceptable. You are always on time

22. Hugging is reserved for sexual foreplay

23. You begin to understand Jussi Jyylanpaarvi's broadcast of the hockey game

24. You refuse to wear a hat, even in –30 degree weather

25. You hear loud-talking passengers on the train. You immediately assume:
a. they are drunk
b. they are Swedish-speaking
c. they are American
d. all of the above

26. You give up on trying to find fat-free food and pile on the butter, cream and sugar

27. You know how to fix herring in 105 different ways

28. You eat herring in 105 ways

29. You no longer look at sports wear as casual wear, but recognize them as semi-formal wear

30. You can now reconstruct the missing letters on a building. For example :MERIÂ…Â….LITTO OY

31. You have undergone a transformation
a. You accept mustamakkara (Black-blood sausage) as food
b. You accept alcohol as food
c. You accept

32. You understand why the Finnish language has no future tense

33. You no longer have to search for the flushing mechanism

34. You no longer see a problem in wearing white socks with loafers

35. You no longer correct people who say MAC Donald's

36. You just love Jaffa

37. You've come to expect Sunday morning sidewalk vomit dodging

38. You know that "religious holiday" means, "let's get pissed."

39. You enjoy salmiakki

40. You know that "men's public bathroom" is another phrase for sidewalk

41. You know that more than three channels means cable

42. You get all Swedish jokes

43. When you're hungry you can peel a boiled potato like lightning

44. You've become lactose intolerant

45. You accept that 80 degrees C in a sauna is chilly, but 20 degrees C outside is freaking hot.
Also, you accept -30 outside as a reasonable temperature, but anythuing under 22 indoors is unreasonable...

46. You give the air hostess your undivided attention when she demonstrates how to fasten, tighten and unbuckle your seatbelt. You eye the person sitting next to you suspiciously when they don't do the same.

47. You don't waste alcohol. When you spill your drink on the desk and actually contemplate slurping it up anyway

48. You stop asking "how are you" when you meet people. It's just plain "hi" or "mmph" or *nod*. Communicating becomes less and less important...

49. It doesn't matter what nationality the other person is, they'll understand finnish as long as you talk really loud. If this doesn't help, just talk very slow (but still very, very loud).

50. Upon hearing finnish when abroad, you immediately duck for cover and hope they go away. Whatever you do, you in NO WAY, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE utter a single finnish word (By god, they might want to come and talk to you, as if that was completely acceptable finnish behaviour when not in Finland!)

51. You start to believe that pulla is a treat.